1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to video surveillance systems, and in particular, to integrating real digital video streams from video surveillance cameras and logical digital video streams from other sources.
2. Description of Related Art
Video surveillance systems with cameras streaming standard and high-definition video over IP networks to digital recorders, video analytics systems, video management displays and other observing devices/systems are becoming commonplace in the market. Camera network system s can found in airports, on city streets, in transportation facilities, in public shopping malls, iii retail establishment chains, and elsewhere. The features of such systems enhance protection of people, assets and property. Small, medium and large camera networks currently exist with multiple observers remotely located anywhere on locally connected or wide area networks.
The typical video surveillance system is based on a single centralized server, or multiple distributed servers, running video management software that connects with many cameras which can be observed by multiple observers. Each observer uses a browser-based or a standalone viewing application to view and to interact with multiple camera streams displayed in a tiled format. The observer may also use a graphical user interface (GUI) to manually operate Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) controls of various cameras in the tiled view, to trigger or invoke PTZ presets, and in some cases to listen and push-to-talk to microphones and speakers connected to cameras.
Typically, the IP-based protocol between the observers and the video management server is private and specific to the manufacturer. The control and streaming protocol between the video management server and the cameras is typically also specific to each camera manufacturer, although open-standards for IP camera streaming and control are emerging. Multiple types of IP cameras may also exist in a single system, and in this case the video management server may be configured to use the camera vendor-specific protocol for communicating with each type of camera.
In addition to the streams from actual video surveillance cameras, there has been a recent interest in enabling end users to observe and control various types of streams from other sources without requiring any changes to existing (legacy) video management servers and displays. For example, it may be desirable for observers to use their existing video management GUIs to view and/or participate in multi-party video teleconferences for improved communication and collaboration. However, the different protocols used by cameras and video management systems have made it difficult to integrate streams from other sources into a video management system. Therefore, what is needed is a system capable of integrating both real video streams from video surveillance cameras and logical video streams from other sources.